How to Start Exercising: A Beginner’s Guide to Gym

So, you are all ready to begin a new fit journey, but don’t know how to go about with it. Don’t worry we will guide you to your wider back, rocky abs and big bicep goals through this guide.

But before you actually start off your pursuit of fitness, there are a few “do”s and “don’t”s that you need to consider to become a gym bro or broette. Obviously, you want to stand out in the crowd, but not as a wannabe or a fool.

The “Do”s

1. Gym Clothes

You cannot go to the gym without special fabric pants and t-shirts, in fact in a few months, you won’t go anywhere without these. For start, you could wear a loose cotton t-shirt with a pair of track pants and soft-comfy shoes that have a significant grip. Remember that you don’t want to wear your gym shoes anywhere else, not even on tennis courts! This is to keep your grips strong and shoes dirt-free. Once your body demands go up you could shift to more specific clothes and shoes, but this won’t happen for at least another 4-6 months or even a year

2. Stay Dedicated

Fitness is a lifestyle and not a trend. Once you acquire a gym membership there is no backing out. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t get those abs in the first week because that is not going to happen anytime soon. Unless you are really skinny, which if you are, then let me remind you that those aren’t abs, that’s malnutrition. Muscle pains, injuries and acne are going to be a part of your life, but just remember, Rome was not built in a day.

3. Know your Body Type

Most people walk into the gym without knowing themselves. Not knowing the workout is acceptable, that’s the reason we have trainers and you have us! But you should know your capabilities, your goals, and your body type.

There are 3 types of bodies.

Ectomorphs are really thin and skinny and you could nearly see their bone structures through the skin.

Mesomorphs have ideal body fat and BMIs. They are neither too skinny or too fat. This is the category most of the gym bros want to get in. Shredded or Bulked you first want to get your body here.

Endomorphs this is where a majority of our generation lies. Fat percentage beyond healthy thresholds and obese bodies.

4. Diet

Gaining Weight:

If you are skinny you would eventually have to put on some weight to help yourself lift heavier with lower chances of injuries. But your gained weight isn’t going to be a lot of fat. A little bit of fat and mostly muscles. You will have to increase your meals from thrice a day to 6 times a day. Eat less in each meal, but eat 6 times daily and you’d eventually increase your calorie intake, coping up with your new activities that burn a lot of calories besides meeting your daily requirement.

The 6-meal plan also keeps providing your body with limited quantities of proteins and carbohydrates at regular intervals instead of flooding your body at once.

Losing Weight:

Most people when they start trying to lose weight start skipping out meals or eating less. This would only harm your body in more ways than you could imagine. Also, if you intend to leave the gym as soon as you lose a few pounds, then you are going to resume your normal diet and will gain weight really fast.

Instead of trying to lose weight try focusing on reducing inches and toning your body. Reduced meals and heavy workouts are going to remove your muscle instead of fat. Try having the same meals in the same amounts but take care of your calorie count. Instead of having butter try using peanut butter and then eventually cut down on butter too instead of not having butter at all.

5. Outside Gym

Water

Increasing your water even by a liter is going to boost your muscle gains and weight losses immediately. Be like water, my friend!

Jogs

Instead of running on the treadmill for long hour, run in open parks instead. Running on treadmills for longer duration is going to hurt your ankles and could even lead to a life-long injury.

Toxics

You are going to have an urge to inject stuff into yourself to get gains quicker. The naturally gained body muscle is going to stay, intoxicated ones won’t. Every sort of addiction needs to go, I mean including chocolates and coffee. But don’t remove them immediately that would hurt your body more. Reduce the intake over weeks and months.

The “Don’t”s

1. Wear Old Shoes

If you intend to save a penny or two do that by walking to the gym or joining a gym with lesser equipment and lesser fees for the first year but never wear old shoes to the gym. Old shoes mean inviting knee and ankle injuries. Be sure you buy in shoes that could fit the gym purpose or you already have such shoes. Not too hard or they won’t help and not too soft because they’ll squeeze out.

2. Stick to Cardio

While trying to reduce weight most bros and broettes stick to cardio and that’s the best way to ruin your body! A lot of cardio will make you lose your weight quickly but your body structure will remain nearly the same because you lost muscle instead of fat.

3. Be scared when you don’t Lose weight

When you start lifting weight your muscle mass will start increasing. Muscles of same volume weigh more than fat. So, you would either lose significant inches or weight. Never both at the same time, unless you are sick. So even if you aren’t losing weight after months of effort, you are losing inches and getting your body toned towards your ideal summer body

Fact: A 5-feet-5-inch tall person with about 30%+ fat with low muscle density would hardly weigh 80-90 kgs while a heavy weight lifter with 8% fat can weight over 100 kgs!

4. Jump to Strict Diet

If you cut out a lot of stuff like chocolates, coffee, fast food, bread, cereals and jump to oat meals, salads and boiled chicken immediately your body is going to react and you are going to have cravings for the stuff, that you won’t be able to control. Instead, move slowly towards your ideal diet and move there over months.

5. Inside Gym

Don’t be ashamed of your body, everyone in the gym is here to develop their bodies, to build their bodies. Only that the people you look up to have been there for years and you are just starting. They were like you or worse than you once but now you look up to them

Don’t push your body off the cliff. If you are tired your body will let you know, if you do more you would feel it. Never force yourself to complete another set if your body is heated. One extra set will pull you on bed and make you miss 3 days to a week of workout. But that doesn’t mean you should not do an extra set if you can. Challenging your muscles is the everyday goal.

Okay, Bros and Broettes, that’s all to get you started, enjoy a fit and healthy life and follow Cannot Cardio for more fitness posts! Follow us and Stay Awesome!

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